Podnews Daily - podcast industry news
Daily news for people in podcasting - from Apple Podcasts to Spotify and YouTube; Amy Poehler to Crime Junkie and Joe Rogan, indie podcasting to the biggest hits. Whether it's the newest show from Goalhanger, the latest signing from The Ringer, advertising information from Magellan AI or Podtrac, research including the most popular podcasts to listen to, or updates from The Daily from The New York Times, we cover it all, every weekday. Podnews also covers the latest podcast jobs and events - and we help you with new podcasts to listen to. Our podcast is updated weekdays at 7a...
Storm clouds at Cumulus Podcast Network
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Cumulus Media has laid-off a large number of people in the Cumulus Podcast Network; some reports suggested the entire department has been gutted, though the company has said that those reports are inaccurate, and that the company "remains committed" to its network. A LinkedIn post by former VP of Podcast Operations and Production, Jay "PodVader" Soderberg, suggests he is one of those affected; it's also reported that SVP of Marketing and Podcasting Carolyn...13% now consume podcasts most on the TV
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13% of US weekly podcast consumers say they consume podcasts most often... on the television. Edison Podcast Metrics report that it's the highest figure yet - and reflects the growing number of podcasts making it to YouTube, Netflix, Tubi and other video platforms. It does beg the question: what is Apple Podcasts doing about Roku and Android TV, which dominate the connected TV world? Apple Podcasts on an Apple TV will get access to video podcasting...Acast and Buzzsprout both enhance video offerings
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How much could video increase your show? "Adding video saw an estimated increase of around 25% in weekly sessions on Apple Podcasts" says Acast, announcing today that any Acast creator can now publish video to Apple Podcasts; the feature had previously been invitation-only. All creators have potential to earn from video as well, through Acast's marketplace. The video plan starts at $39.99/month on an annual plan. (If you're already on the Acast Creator Network, just...EXCLUSIVE: Spotify threatens podcasting with ad-skipping tool
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Exclusive: Spotify releases its latest earnings report this morning - but they won't be promoting this. In a significant threat to podcasting, Podnews can reveal today that Spotify is testing an ad-skipping tool for podcasts - a "Skip ahead" button that appears in podcast ads and sponsorship messages. Spotify's new ad-blocker is even blocking ads that Spotify has sold, leading some to wonder whether this is fraudulent behaviour by the company. Ads...The EU Artificial Intelligence Act becomes law
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The EU Artificial Intelligence Act comes into law today - which is relevant if your content is consumed in the EU, like all podcasts are. Article 50 requires clear disclosure if you use AI to "generate or manipulate" audio or video content. In an article, Production Expert clarifies that manipulation doesn't mean de-noising or repairing audio (or using AI editing tools); but it does mean that clear disclosure is required if you're generating whole phrases...The highest-paid podcasters
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Forbes has published a list of the twenty Highest-Paid Podcasters of 2026. The full list is, ironically, behind a paywall; the top five is Joe Rogan The Joe Rogan Experience($82mn) at #1, John Coogan and Jordi Hayes of TBPN($70mn), Steven Bartlett of Diary of a CEO ($45mn), Ashley Flowers of Crime...Want to grow your podcast? Get one of these
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Podcast newsletters (ones you run for your podcast, not this one) are "the best real estate to own in podcasting", says Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster in an article this week. 87% of subscribers to podcast newsletters have listened to an episode because of them (42% often have), and of course they allow you...How Canadians listen to audio
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9 out of 10 Canadians listened to some form of audio yesterday - and half of it is ad-supported. However, podcasts get just 9% of all ad-supported audio time in Canada, says a new piece of research from Signal Hill Insights. Music on YouTube, or streaming services, are listened-to more than 2.5x more, the...Checking ads aren’t disguised as something else
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Want to fill more ad space? SpotsNow's AI Search routes advertisers to the right shows by audience fit, at the time of planning. Set up a free account, list your shows, and requests land straight in your ad sales inbox. Book a demo today
Programmatic ads are fine - until they're not. Some companies are a little too "creative" with their categories, so they can slip past creator filters and you can get ads for things you don't want in your show. RedCircle has launched Mic Check for Programmatic Ads - a tool that checks...Cheerful Earful to bring funny back
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The world's funniest podcast festival returns this October. Cheerful Earful will be in London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Dublin and New York from Sep 28 - Oct 28, with the largest lineup in the festival's history. Is video the future for podcasting? It depends, suggests Losh Moodaley, writing for Podnews today - the hidden...AMP Accords released, including podcast definition
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The AMP Accords published what it calls "the first cross-platform measurement standard in history". The document defines a podcast, and aims to set implementation standards for attribution and exposure metrics. It argues that these standards are required to grow the industry further - and could, potentially, unlock a billion dollars in extra...Acast shows strong sales growth
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Acast released its Q2/26 financial report. The company reported +28% sales growth - significantly, +34% in North America and +25% in Europe (growth this time last year in Europe was just +9%). The company made a profit of US$3.3mn. Total consumption is up +2%; total average revenue per listen-or-view is up +26%. The AMP Task Force paper...Another app promises to cut out the ads
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In January, we reported on PodcastAdBlock, a podcast tool that removed ads from podcasts, selling ad-free copies of shows. It was written by developer, "adventurer and entrepreneur" Ben Bowler, who, by May, had pulled the tool down. Today, we discover, he's back - with Podtastic, a podcast app that skips the ads...IAB to release v2.3 of measurement guidelines
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This morning, the IAB Tech Lab will release v2.3 of the Podcast Measurement Guidelines for public comment - updated for the first time since Feb 2024. The updates add "guidance around URL prefix measurement and RSS enclosure URL changes" among other things, although we will have to wait until 2027 for a version of...The top 50 podcasts in the US
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Edison Research at SSRS released the top 50 podcasts in the US for Q2 2026. The Bill Simmons Podcast, which is now visible on Netflix, has jumped 17 positions to make it into the top 25 for the first time. British podcast The Rest Is History has entered the top 50 for the first time. (Simplecast hosts 17...Audio: the “foundation” of podcasting
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Audio remains the bedrock of podcasting, says a new report from Nielsen. 90% of monthly podcast consumers choose to listen, the data suggests, and most of podcast consumption is still audio, by a large margin. It quotes Edison Research's Share of Ear for Q1, which sys that 20% of time spent with ad-supported audio...Platform insights for YouTube
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WARC Media released a report on YouTube - which, it says, is worth $40bn to advertisers, but revenue growth is slowing down. TikTok is set to grow bigger than YouTube by the end of the decade; but Netflix is expected to pull ahead in the next eighteen months. Users spend 58 minutes a...Listeners prefer AI voices, claim two studies
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A new study seems to show that audiobook listeners prefer some AI narrators over human voices. The study, conducted by Edison Research at SSRS, blind-tested Spoken Multi-Cast narration, and discovered that, while 31% of listeners said they'd be likely to listen to AI, after listening, that number had risen to 65%. (61% thought that the...Interest in podcast advertising hits twelve year high
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Podcasting has never been more interesting to advertising agencies and marketers, according to new research released by Westwood One. The study reveals that 76% of agencies and advertisers currently advertise in podcasts - a x5 increase in the last twelve years. SpotsNow has launched a new AI Search for podcast ad buyers. The...Bill Maher signs with Daylight Media
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Exclusive: Daylight Media has signed Bill Maher's Club Random - it becomes the latest show to join the network in a period of fast growth. Daylight will work with Club Random on sales and distribution; nine other shows have recently joined the platform. "Consumers simply don't have the attention span they...Are podcast advertisers missing a trick?
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Triton Digital has released data from its Demos+ platform, highlighting a missed opportunity between podcast audiences and ad-buyers. Its data shows that Black/African American listeners are significantly more likely than most to purchase life insurance, or to switch wireless providers. However, in spite of offering significantly better ROI for advertisers...Youtube overtakes Spotify in the UK for podcasts
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
YouTube is now the most popular service used for podcast consumption in the UK - two years after YouTube edged out Spotify in the US for the first time. Apple Podcasts is the fourth most popular in the country, after BBC Sounds, the corporation's proprietary app. The data is from Edison...Spotify podcast ads get delivered by Amazon
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Spotify has deepened its relationship with Amazon DSP. Now, advertisers using Amazon DSP are able to directly buy audio ads across podcasts on Spotify, globally. This opens up significant additional revenue opportunities for podcasting, Spotify says. Amazon DSP is a tool that also has partnerships with Disney+, Tubi and Hulu, and...Voting opens for Podcast Movement sessions
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Voting has opened for the speaker sessions at Podcast Movement NYC. Anyone can vote, and votes will go towards half of the 2026 agenda. There have been more than 750 session submissions. You can search and vote for them here. Tickets for the event are available - it'll be in New York, Sep 17...Who’s in the British Podcast Awards “longlist”?
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
The British Podcast Awards 2026 released its longlist - recognising 409 entrants across 27 categories. Almost half the longlist are claimed to be independent titles and talent. We see at least 53 nominations for the BBC, eleven for Audible, eight for Audio Always, Platform Media and Bauer Media, seven for Persephonica and Fun Kids, five...Jamie East has bad blood
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
At some point 1 in 2 people will be affected by cancer. "Whenever I read that stat, I just always felt sorry for the other guy. Plot twist… you will occasionally be the other guy," says Jamie East, who releases Bad Blood: The Diary of a Cancer today. Jamie, who is Head of Po...Who listens to podcasts? Best not to assume
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Who really listens to podcasts? Be careful with your assumptions, says numbereight, quoting from a study across five markets. Podcast listeners aren't just young; seniors are not just an edge case; and it's not just boys listening. The piece gives us the right questions to ask when planning podcast campaigns. A...A new Riverside
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Riverside 2.0 begins to roll out today, which the company calls the biggest update in its history - with a new fully rebuilt recording studio and AI editor, social scheduling to automatically post to every channel, motion graphics in the video editor, and an upcoming MCP integration to connect AI assistants like...Power-up your podcast in July
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Ask any podcast advertising question inside Claude or ChatGPT. The SpotsNow connector brings competitor analysis, campaign planning intelligence, competitor conflict vetting and new-client opportunities into the AI tools your team already uses. Try it free until July 22. Connect your AI to SpotsNow
Want to power-up your podcast? Starting tomorrow, a 30-day Podcast Power-Up Challenge will give you ways to do that. You get a prompt (via email and Slack), it'll just take 10-15 minutes a day, you'll gain valuable skills by the end of it, we're told: and you'll join a community of...Multiplatform podcasting
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Podcasts are becoming multiplatform - audio, video, short-form, social and newsletters - and audiences are switching between them. That's one of the findings of a new piece of research: The Podcast Atlas by Sounds Profitable, which gets covered in a free webinar this Wednesday...Companies to get help with Japanese podcasts
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In Tokyo, Otonal has launched a podcast and audio ad localization service, to help global brands adapt their English-language content into the Japanese market. Literal translations, the company says, simply don't work well in Japan, with complex levels of politeness, and grammatical structures that mean call-to-actions are at the end of a...Captivate turns on monetisation options
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Growth-oriented podcast host Captivate has turned on Captivate Monetization, a full suite of tools to help its podcasters earn revenue from advertising. It comprises Captivate Marketplace, for direct sales between your podcast and advertisers (here is more info for advertisers); Programmatic Advertising, an existing Memberships and tips tool, and a new Campaign...The podcast crowdfunded for $200,000
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Get SpotsNow's Claude and ChatGPT connector free for a month. Ask anything about podcast advertising in plain language, right inside Claude or ChatGPT. Designed from the ground up for podcast advertising workflows to give you the edge. Connect free in 60 seconds
How much will people pledge for a good podcast? The Apple history podcast Designed in California has now raised over $200,000 in its Kickstarter campaign, with another seven days left. (There are plenty of fiction podcasts or podcast apps that could do with your financial support, just saying. Oh, and this.) Crossed Wires...Netflix podcasts are “low engagement”
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Is Netflix's podcast strategy paying off? Writing in Puck ($), and reported in Awful Announcing, Matthew Belloni suggests that "multiple (Netflix) company sources have told me that podcast engagement numbers on the whole are low." Belloni adds that "no video podcast has charted on Nielsen's weekly top 10". Opinion: These two statements aren't...How many buy from podcast ads?
Sponsored by SpotsNow. Get SpotsNow's Claude and ChatGPT connector free for a month. Ask anything about podcast advertising in plain language, right inside Claude or ChatGPT. Designed from the ground up for podcast advertising workflows to give you the edge. Connect free in 60 seconds
How well does podcast advertising work? Podcast promos are a good example - nearly 3 in 5 new listeners who find a podcast though podcast promos return to listen to more episodes. That's detailed in Magellan AI's first-ever Podcast Measurement Benchmark Report, covering podcast campaigns from Q1. It shows an average response rate of 2.29...How listeners find new shows
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YouTube is the most popular way to discover new podcasts, according to new research from Sounds Profitable and JAR Podcast Solutions. 61% discover shows via either YouTube or social media. However, different platforms vary with different ages. The data is a free download. Entertainment shows typically don't perform very well for advertisers - but, there are some breakout entertainment podcasts with great ad performance, says Oxford Road, in a...A new AMP member
Sponsored by SpotsNow's webinar - today. SpotsNow is the AI operating system for podcast advertising. Join today's webinar (2pm Eastern) to learn how podcast networks can use AI to maximize their sales output using Claude, agents and ChatGPT. Book today's free webinar now
Podnews has learnt that YouTube is an undisclosed member of AMP - the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting which is seeking to enhance measurement standards. A Google spokesperson has confirmed to us that "YouTube has been participating in the AMP led conversations". It's widely believed that a "view" in YouTube is 30 seconds of content played...Highest ever number of Canadian podcast listeners
Sponsored by SpotsNow. SpotsNow is the AI operating system for podcast advertising. Join the webinar tomorrow to learn how podcast networks can use AI to maximize their sales output using Claude, agents and ChatGPT. Book tomorrow's free webinar now
Podcasts in Canada now reach more Canadians than ever before, according to Triton Digital's fourth annual Canadian Podcast Report, which recorded the largest single-year increase in listeners to 46% a month. (For English-speaking Canadians, that number is 49%.) The data shows that YouTube is the most-used podcast platform in the country; with Apple Podcasts the #1 RSS-based podcast app - 49% of...Americans are spending longer with podcasts
Sponsored by SpotsNow. SpotsNow is the AI operating system for podcast advertising. Join the webinar this Thursday to learn how podcast networks can use AI to maximize their sales output using Claude, agents and ChatGPT. Book Thursday's free webinar now
Exclusive: New data released by Edison Research at SSRS today shows that Americans are spending almost four times longer with podcasts than they were ten years ago. This year, Americans are now spending 812 million hours each week consuming podcasts. That's a 5% increase in the total time spent with podcasting in just twelve months, and shows that podcasting has...Podcast analytics: 30 or 60 seconds? Does it matter?
Sponsored by SpotsNow. SpotsNow is the AI operating system for podcast advertising. Join the webinar this Thursday to learn how podcast networks can use AI to maximize their sales output using Claude, agents and ChatGPT. Book Thursday's free webinar now
With a new definition of a podcast "play" being "at least 30 seconds of content consumed", we wondered what would happen if the definition of a "download" also changed to "at least 30 seconds of content downloaded". Below in the "Tech Stuff", we ask one of the world's biggest podcast hosts whether they could recalculate their stats to see how...